IS PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2 JUST AS TERRIFYING AS THE FIRST?

A family who film their daily lives 24/7 are faced against a goofy supernatural entity in this terrible horror sequel. This is a massive disappointment considering that the first Paranormal Activity was really enjoyable and actually terrifying.

A family install multiple security cameras around their house after what they believe was a break-in. But the occurrences they capture on the cameras suggest that the real problem may be supernatural activity, leading the family to believe their house is haunted.

Director: Tod Williams
Cast: Katie Featherston, Micah Sloat, Molly Ephraim, Sprague Grayden, Brian Boland, Vivis Colombetti
Writer: Michael R. Perry, Christopher Landon, Tom Pabst
Release Date (Australia): 21 October 2010
Runtime: 91 minutes/1h 31m
Genre: Horror, Mystery
Country: USA
Language: English, Spanish

R (for some language and brief violent material)

Paranormal Activity 2 is a convoluted, boring, terribly written and atrociously acted horror film pitting a dumb vlog family against a supernatural entity who likes to play pranks on them. After thoroughly enjoying the first Paranormal Activity and going into this film with the anticipation of watchable sequences and some good scares, I was immensely disappointed to find every horror cliché I could think of wrapped up in this messy borefest of a sequel to an effective paranormal chiller.

The film starts off with an overload of boring family footage in what’s supposed to be a quick montage of the first year in which they bring their newborn baby home for the first time, the loving family members all hanging out together, taking care of their their baby, all because they never stop recording no matter what. You get the picture. It’s basically the perfect home life, until we’re all in shock at the sight of their home being completely trashed, leading them to set up multiple security cameras around their house. And there we go: a classic set-up for a Paranormal Activity movie. Fans can expect a very limited amount of effective nighttime sequences featuring very unsettling occurrences and demonic noises, but that’s all there is to get excited over.

One of this movie’s biggest issues is that it never feels like the plot is moving and nothing really exciting is happening for the first two acts. As expected, nothing suspicious is caught on camera for the first night; it’s just a normal, breezy night in the neighbourhood. However, we get a stupid amount of nights where barely any activity is taking place. It might not be as big of a problem if the overlong daytime sequences filling the gaps weren’t just footage of their completely boring everyday lives and raising their child. There is way too much boring family vlogging going on in this movie.

But when their cameras aren’t recording the characters feeding, clothing, talking to or adoring their small year-old boy, all that remains is tired pacing and frustrating clichés. Ooh, the sister doesn’t want to talk about her traumatic past because it’s a forbidden subject and everything will somehow get worse by talking about it. Oh, all of these bad things are happening but everything’s fine and we just shouldn’t pay it any attention. The boredom and dissatisfaction I received from this movie is maddening. The acting is terrible, you don’t care about the characters, the script is a copy-and-paste, there’s plot holes everywhere, and the filmmakers ultimately made a trashy sequel that doesn’t answer to its terrifying predecessor.

Thank you for reading this page and for more Aussie Boy reviews, visit Aussieboyreviews.com.